In class, I inadvertently dropped a phrase that revealed either my Midwest roots or my “maturity”, or both.
I referred to something as a “Lucky Strike Extra”.
You know, something out of the normal routine … an added benefit.
Most of the class ignored the comment and some rolled their eyes.
But, one student emailed me:
“I have noticed you use the expression “lucky strike extra” in class — this is an old family favorite (we call extra “freebie” birthday/Christmas gifts lucky strike extras). It is not something that you hear all that often – it inspired some sentiment just in time for the holidays.”
That got me wondering where the phrase originated.
This came in this week in class … subject was “confirmation bias” … how people naturally lock onto beliefs and only seek or notice that aligns with their going-in position.
One of the antidotes is enlisting a so-called devil’s advocate” to keep things honest.
A what?
You know, we’ve all been there …
You’re in meetings pitching an idea when some jabrone pipes in:
“Let me play the role of devil’s advocate …”
He then blasts your idea with half-baked criticisms.
As you aggressively defend your cherished idea, he backs off:
“Hey man, I’m just playing devil’s advocate”.
“Say, what? You mean your just made up those cheap shots?”
I’ve been reading books on decision making this summer.
A couple have praised the use of so-called devil’s advocates to validate ideas and arguments.
I didn’t say it, the New Yorker magazine did, setting off a buzz in the halls of academia.
The theme of the New Yorker article –- titled “Truth Wears Off” –was that most (academic) research was flawed and not able to be replicated. This is, the results were at best true under some special circumstances at a specific point in time, but can’t be replicated. At worst, they’re just plain bull.
Hmmm.
Challenging the integrity of publication-driven academics?
Turns out that the New Yorker wasn’t the first mag on the beat.
Everybody knows that Amazon’s free shipping program has been a resounding success.
So much so. that the company has announced that it will be moving the minimum qualifying order up from $25 to $35 … inducing shoppers to fill their carts fuller or switch to the highly profitable Amazon Prime program.
Excerpted fro WSJ: Why So Many People Can’t Make Decisions
Some people meet, fall in love and get married right away. Others can spend hours in the sock aisle at the department store, weighing the pros and cons of buying a pair of wool argyles instead of cotton striped.
Seeing the world as black and white, in which choices seem clear, or shades of gray can affect people’s path in life, from jobs and relationships to which political candidate they vote for.
The Obama administration on Friday unveiled data showing that many Americans with health insurance bought under the Affordable Care Act could face substantial price increases next year — in some cases as much as 20 percent.
Now, those are exchange premiums so they don’t apply to me.
Still, the headline was shocking enough to make me take a serious look at the premiums that I pay.
Recently referenced in class a book called A whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the World.
As a hard core left-brainer, I figured I’d better pay attention to this one.
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Here’s the crux of the book …
The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind — computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers.
But, the future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind — creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers.
We are moving from an economy and a society built on the logical, linear, computerlike capabilities of the Information Age …
… to an economy and a society built on the inventive, empathic, big-picture capabilities of what’s rising in its place, the Conceptual Age.
Why the shift?
Because any kind of work that be reduced to repeatable rules and defined processes can be automated or shipped off-shore – even so-called knowledge work
Survival in the Conceptual Age requires thinking skills utilizing the right-side of the brain.
Specifically, “high concept” involves the capacity to:
detect patterns and opportunities
create artistic and emotional beauty
craft a satisfying narrative
…. and to combine seemingly unrelated ideas into something new and distinctive.
Even if you believe that “the end justifies the means”, this has gotta make your skin crawl.
Some background: Prof. Jonathan Gruber is an MIT economist who helped on RomneyCare in Massachusetts and was one of the primary architects of ObamaCare.
He was caught on video speaking quite frankly about the crafting of ObamaCare.
His basic message:
“The bill was written in a tortured way … to be sure that the CBO didn’t score the mandate as a tax … otherwise the bill would die … so, it was written to do that … with regards to the subsides … if people figured out that healthy pay in to give sick people money, it wouldn’t have passed … lack of transparency is a huge political advantage … and basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or what … that was critical to getting the bill to pass … yeah, it would be better to be transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not.”
Watch the video … it’s even more chilling to hear Prof. Gruber say the words: Obfuscate and bank on American stupidity.
How do these guys sleep at night?
P.S. Another Gruber video will get wide play in the next couple of months.
He’s on tape saying that the specific language in the bill that only provided subsidies for folks going through state exchanges was intentional to motivate states to build exchanges,
Now, ObamaCare supporters are claiming it was just a typo that didn’t represent intent.
Well, the Supreme Court has signed on to settle the matter … with life & death consequence for ObamaCare.
That’s pretty ironic since the Dems were, before the election, boasting about their predictive analytics and their unstoppable get-out-the-vote organization.
I haven’t been hearing much on the news about the GOTV machine that failed to get-out-the-vote.
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So, what happened? Here are a couple of hypotheses to ponder(more…)
Lots has been written recently re: the economic value of a college degree.
Let’s boil it down to 3 key charts …
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First, the cost side of the equation …
Sky-rocketing tuitions are loading students with an enormous amount of post-graduation debt.
While other forms of consumer debt have held relatively constant for the past 10 years, student loans have soared from “only” $200 million in 2004 to over $1 trillion today.
Former darling of the left for having predicted President Obama’s hefty win over Mitt Romney, stats-jock Nate Silver has given his final pre-election prediction:
76% chance that the Republicans take control of the Senate today … with odds trending their way.
Silver’s prediction slides between the high-end Washington Post (97%) and CNN (95%) … and the low-balling New York Times (70%).
That means that there’s a 100% chance that Silver gets neither savant accolades, nor hoot-calls … his prediction is stuck in the middle.
My students are likely to cringe at this post which kinda legitimizes my teaching style.
Uh-oh …
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According to a recent WSJ article:
The latest findings in fields from music to math to medicine lead to a single, startling conclusion: It’s time to revive old-fashioned education.
Not just traditional but old-fashioned in the sense that so many of us knew as kids, with strict discipline and unyielding demands.
Why?
Because here’s the thing: It works.
Of course, that conclusion flies in the face of the kinder, gentler philosophy that has dominated American education over the past few decades.
The conventional wisdom holds that teachers are supposed to tease knowledge out of students, rather than pound it into their heads.
Projects and collaborative learning are applauded; traditional methods like lecturing and memorization — derided as “drill and kill” — are frowned upon, dismissed as a surefire way to suck young minds dry of creativity and motivation.
The Homa Files 